How Sensitive is too Sensitive?

While sitting at my computer today doing mundane chores like paying bills, I received a phone call from a long time friend.  She is someone I have known for over forty years and through thick and thin we have always been able to talk about each others’ lives and share memories.  Lately, however, it would seem that between us, too many feelings are being hurt over small things.  Most would say that one or both of us are being “too sensitive,” a term I don’t quite understand.  I can say that personally, my friends, my boss, my family and anyone else I’ve encountered in my life has at one time referred to me as being “too” sensitive.

The good news is that today it finally dawned on me.  I have always been a victim of my past, and therefore very defensive and guarded around people.  In other words, I didn’t have much self-esteem.  To that end, the same can be said for my long time friend.  Thanks to an incredible medical intuitive, Caroline Myss, whose DVD’s I was fortunate to have listened to recently because of my friend Maria, we need to just get over it.  The past helps you figure out things as you grow, but it doesn’t have to live with you in the present.  She made a statement that really hit home with me.  She said, “Embrace loneliness.  Become good friends with it.  Take it out to lunch.”  This made a huge impact on me because I didn’t realize just how much I was fighting loneliness recently.  I could say it was because of my mom passing, my son graduating, menopause or that I don’t have a love interest in my life or many friends, but why?  Why make excuses for living in a place that brings constant sorrow and doubt?  No reason I can think of other than the fact that I’ve spent the better part of 40 something years conditioning myself to do so.  It was comfortable there.   It was what I knew.  The trick is to force yourself to live outside of your comfort zone.  Embrace the loneliness and fill it with healthy things in the here and now.  Peoples’ opinions of you should never matter more than your own opinion of you.

I can now laugh at my boss/friend, who always says to me, when I let myself get down in the muck, “Stop apologizing for breathing.”  This was exactly what I wanted to say to my friend on the phone tonight because the most frustrating part of our conversation was that no matter what I said, she was defensive and apologizing assuming that everything was her fault.  She said that I deserved a better friend and that she was sorry for not being that to me.  It was like someone held a mirror to my face during this conversation.  Sadly, I may never be able to relay this message to her while she is in this frame of mind because I’m sure it would be taken as her having done something else wrong. 

If you are reading this post and if anything here sounds all too familiar to you or hits home in any way, I highly recommend getting ahold of either some literature, video or audio cd’s by Caroline Myss.  She has changed my life in a way that I haven’t been able to do up to now, despite my efforts.  Below are some great quotes by Caroline Myss:

 

"If anyone tries to complicate your life,
turn and walk away from them."

"We grow primarily through our challenges,
especially those life-changing moments when we begin to recognize
aspects of our nature that make us different from the family
and culture in which we have been raised."

"When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves,
or when we intentionally create pain for others,
we poison our own physical and spiritual systems.
By far the strongest poison to the human spirit
is the inability to forgive oneself or another person.
It disables a person's emotional resources.
The challenge is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves
and to develop the power of forgiveness. "

"The soul always knows what to do to heal itself.
The challenge is to silence the mind."

"Do you really want to look back on your life
and see how wonderful it could have been
had you not been afraid to live it."

"The act of forgiveness is the act of returning to present time.
And that's why when one has become a forgiving person,
and has managed to let go of the past,
what they've really done is they've shifted their relationship with time.